


Tell Me If You Stay

by gDeIpVhIrNoEtt



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 01:38:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4460363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gDeIpVhIrNoEtt/pseuds/gDeIpVhIrNoEtt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bliss is more than dubious but Tao doesn’t give a flying shit that this is just a dream because both of them know for sure that their feelings and their words and their connection and this reunion are definitely real and fated. Tao/Kris, post-Kris-lawsuit. Nauseating angst and drama, rated M for scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me If You Stay

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Taoris fic, or kpop fic for that matter. Thank you so much to my dear friend (who I call Zi Fan) for your endless support, patience, and encouragement. And also thank you for encouraging me to write for Taoris - it ended up great! This is for you.

_Tell Me If You Stay () –_ _gDeIpVhIrNoEtt_

Tao knows he’s dreaming. Something deep, something quandary, something so heart-wrenchingly frangible shifts inside him. What’s certain is that one – it was once a beautiful, binary wing beating in all its glory but now it’s reduced to an aching one-part fragment mourning for the other half that completes it. Two – it’s a frustrating morass, all emotional and mental and physical and realistic. Three – it’s a releasing expression of his pent-up feelings and this feels way too good, way too satisfying, way too everything-is-going-my-way for Tao to trust.

The mystery current takes him anyway, to somewhere both familiar and new, much like a freshly-discovered angle of a rock he and Kris loved looking at. observing. talking about, even. Maybe. Tao knows his mind and his body are beyond exhausted with the “extra-busy schedules” that never seem to end and he knows will never end and that’s why this….shower of sensations is even more beyond dubious, like _How the hell can my body even..?_

When colors explode and at least fifty-nine different blends of textures cross his palms, he thinks he’s in the most beautiful part of purgatory. It’s both scary and aesthetic, in a way you knew isn’t really possible on Earth. Contemplating confessing some sins and resolving to lighten his expected judgment, Tao feels like his eyes are slightly-hilariously half-open. and the chuckle that erupts from his much-too-dry lips is almost enough to jerk him back awake. It doesn’t happen, though. The mélange of funny colors and the wash of textures ad nauseum prevails and explodes to something like a cacophony of the techno beats in all of their dance tracks….if physicality ever collided with music. What he knows for sure is that he’s not leaving this place soon –

And then he’s on a concert stage and it’s abandoned. and for some funny reason there are lights and shadowing and strobes backing up his every single move like he’s in a movie, and his body is automated-linked to the brain of the lights-and-shadows team. It’s an overwhelming realization, both stunningly-amazing and flabbergasting. Tao doesn’t know where the hell he is on this stage, but there’s an all-too-familiar shadow and silhouette, and the Light Setting Number One -   
it’s the setting the Lights Team most often use at the beginning when the fans are still cheering and the members walk their way into the light, anyway.   
For now, Tao struggles and forces himself to focus his eyes on that shadow, the silhouette separated – defined - from the stage. There’s a definite, highlighting haze around his head and shoulders and Tao knows he’s got quite enough distance to see the shadow in front of the person. He doesn’t really care how his exhausted brain absorbs all these meticulous details and once again he’s slipping away –

but when he comes back, the shadow’s face isn’t illuminated.   
That isn’t enough for Tao not to recognize Kris, though.   
Everything starts feeling heavy. his heart is throbbing, excruciated; this sensation the only replica so far of the day when Kris left and Tao’s soul shattered into a million irrevocable atoms of agony.  but Tao’s brain feels like it’s finally making sense even if he clearly DID NOT WANT to relive that moment.  
 When “Yi Fan” slips out of his dry lips in a tone that’s way too commanding instead of duizhang or gege or Kris, Tao almost cannot recognize himself. He sees the shadow’s head cock a bit or maybe Tao is just imagining things, but either way he desperately wants to take back the name he used and the tone he uttered it with. repair it; make it more sensible and familiar and _right_  
Make the shadow know that _It’s me, it’s Tao…it’s Tao._

maybe a tear sneaks out of Tao’s left eye   
maybe it’s Kris who quietly says “ _Don’t leave me_ ”, or maybe it’s Tao. In this world, he’s neither awake nor asleep; he’s not resting but he’s not exhausting his energy. Things are blearing fuzzy again and Tao is slightly angry at this, _I need to find out, I need to see…_ And like an emotional mirror that translates itself to reality, the stage light kept flickering on and off Yi Fan. and audacious light battling to overtake the desolate darkness of the stage almost brings more tears to Tao’s eyes.

Tao is able to come closer in some nebulous way. The stage feels like it’s been dumped with trucks and trucks and trucks of snow but in some miracle of almost-reflexive perseverance, Tao reaches Yi Fan and in a moment their eyes are speaking multitudes. And this isn’t how they lock eyes in reality, _this is way too deep, I possibly cannot see a…..galaxy and flames and wolves and pain and agony in his eyes like this._

“ _Don’t leave me_ ,” Yi Fan reiterates. Tao is only confused.   
“I should be the one saying that…?” and he just cannot resist; he’s already sobbing on Yi Fan’s neck and his face is already slipping from said neck because of the plethora of tears and it’s not something he can control right now, anyway.

“ _Tao_ ,” the register of sound is queer, but if this is the only way they can _communicate_ \- “ _I need you too. I miss you too._ ”   They save the mandatory osculant kiss for later. Yi Fan looks deeper into Tao’s eyes with the eyes of a warrior, a guilt-trodden man, a hero, and an adult propelled to survive in at least ten different galaxies. It’s anything but happy. It’s anything but easy. _I’m sorry for leaving, but there was no other way. I’m sorry for leaving, I definitely couldn’t stay. I would’ve broken out. I would’ve given in to the dark place and I would’ve never had the strength to smile at you guys ever again._

_It’s the others who don’t understand, Yi Fan_ , Tao finds himself unwringing the thorns from Kris as well, as much thorns as possible – even if he knows that Kris was already beyond sore from the pierces and heartache has already blackened the unavoidable bruises. There’s no sense of time here but apparently there’s one for emotions and memory. Tao knows that both of them feel like it’s both a blessing and a curse.

Yi Fan is still and silent. Tao wonders if their orgiastic, unresolved, raw feelings power this mystery place. That’s most probably the case. 

_I wouldn’t have been able to protect you..and everyone else anymore if I was crushed just like that,_  
Tao assures him in some way that _you don’t need to explain, Yi Fan. Let’s just..cherish this moment._ Suddenly, he feels the softest, finest dragon wings wrapping around both of them. There’s salve and water and healing crystals and both of them revel in it. because the power, the salvation reaches their aching arteries and it sets their heartbeat right again after centuries of frustration. confusion. betrayal. the sheerest pain promises could backfire you with.

A spotlight floods Yi Fan. Tao’s face lights up a bit, but Yi Fan’s eyes are clouded over to black pools. The curative shower has already waned but there are remnants of crystals splayed around the elder man in an even more surrealistic radius. It’s definitely a heart-wrenching sight, especially when Yi Fan’s teartracks almost spark against the lonely shadows hardening the angles of his face even more.

With a voice on the wistful precipice between declarative and singing, Tao hears Yi Fan utter a line –

_Clouds rolling up and down in summer  
Tears are evaporated by flowing time -_

He doesn’t know how his left finger is suddenly tracing Yi Fan’s abdomen muscles. Maybe they’ve been honed more in the months they haven’t seen each other. maybe they have softened with fatigue and agony and loneliness and pressure, as if the hellacious new life has stolen the blocks of strength and patience and forte they’re built with. With the way Yi Fan is subtly quivering, it’s assured that this was still the most sensitive part of his body and that hasn’t changed and Tao knows they’ve both uttered  this prayer a million times in every single form and variation possible

_Oh heavy snow, I beg you  
Please do not erase the traces of our past_

Tao’s mind drifts off to old memories. familiarity. He feels Yi Fan’s arms around him again in cold, desolate nights in dorms. nuzzling Yi Fan’s strong back, the curve of it beyond reassuring. Yi Fan’s miraculously-ginger voice hushing him, putting his exhausted bones and arms and legs and mind to rest.   
Then it turns out that a significant portion of the surreal barrier between the both of them shatters and Tao’s lips are around Yi Fan’s cock and the _surreality_ of this whole mystery-dream world collides to the most bittersweet reality. Pleasure is reflected in Yi Fan’s glassy eyes even if tears of disbelief are slipping out. in the quivers of Yi Fan’s lips that are quaking harder and harder.   
Tao doesn’t stop to breathe; ecstasy destroys his gag reflex and soon the warm, sticky liquid coating his throat thaws the ice bridge between both of them. the ice bridge that froze their footsteps when they tried to get close to each other. to escape the complications, the knots, the crossviews that they were bombarded with after the lawsuit. There’s common earth for Zi Tao and Yi Fan once again,

_but just how long is this going to last?_

_Savor this, whatever this is. I like it_ , Yi Fan calls out in an almost-subservient voice. It’s totally out-of-character; way too meek - the opposite of what Tao knew of his duizhang but it occurs to Tao again: maybe his duizhang changed in the sense that he’s surpassed himself. A proud feeling spreads through Tao.

_Of course I like it too, Yi Fan,_ Tao buries his face in Yi Fan’s neck again. it’s even warmer. realer. 

_Hand in hand, we may form a boat  
Carrying us across the river of sadness_

Fingers interlace and even the unanimous terrain is worlds better than their half-empty beds at night, the other half unbearably lacking the right presence. Yi Fan flips their positions, but Tao doesn’t mind being the one against the wall. It didn’t matter because there’s a current in the air – this current that lets them say goodbye to lonely, dark nights and unbearably lonely masturbations that is disgustingly unsatisfying without the other’s hand –

_Those nights_ , Yi Fan drawls in a much more leathery, coarse voice that’s more characteristic of him, _For now…we will break them, Tao._ Neither know how on earth Yi Fan slides so easily into Tao. The bliss is more than dubious but Tao doesn’t give a flying shit that this is just a dream because both of them know for sure that their _feelings_ and their _words_ and their _connection_ and this _reunion_ are definitely real and fated.

_Nights when I willed myself not to call you. That you were pursuing what’s really right for all of us. That it was us you were fighting for – and tooth and nail at that._

Weariness and indignance is a rutted, permanent perfume on Yi Fan that Tao couldn’t really whiff away no matter how hard he tries to. He’s more than sure that it fed on Yi Fan’s loneliness. lonely nights.

Physicalizing his prayer to God to grant Yi Fan victory, the arms he couldn’t hold Yi Fan with when his duizhang cried his eyes out in dark knights, Tao’s lips that could’ve kissed Yi Fan’s trodden tracks clean. words he could’ve uttered to at least veneer their heartbreaking loneliness.

So Tao invigorates the rhythm. thrusts harder. thrusts back. matches in nebulously-symmetrical answers for him. It’s always been like that: Yi Fan sparking, molding, nurturing, feeding the relevant bonfire against hell cold – so Tao soothing Yi Fan’s hardworking, aching arms and kissing the curve of his back..

_Yi Fan is here, Yi Fan is here_ , his heart chants in indescribable ecstasy. Yi Fan can’t hold back something that’s more of a grateful sob than a cry of ecstasy and Tao is just in Cloud Nine right now. body and soul. A flare of complicated pleasure multiples and multiples, heightens and heightens like rap chants layered with more and more voices as Yi Fan jackhammers on Tao’s sweet spot.

Heart ablaze with the most beautiful flames colored in nonexistent shades. Yi Fan’s eyes a bibelot of relief and inferno. stardust splayed all over Yi Fan’s dragon wings, illuminating the cold darkness of the stage. luminescent remnants of tears, velvety. breaths mottled with carbon dioxide that’s more resplendent than fireworks.

and yet this is their much-needed quietus. There’s something crucial about this finally-physicalized reality. the brutally-silenced and agonizingly-chained expression of their complicated feelings.

When Tao comes, both of them feel Time’s hands caressing their souls in an extraordinary and new way. radiance is restored in Yi Fan’s lovely face, as if it never knew anguish but sharpened handsome angles is made more beautiful by anguish itself. heavy droplets of tears, glowing glitter-white, replaces sweat down their necks. The shadowing intensifies to just the right amount; Yi Fan’s darkened neck crooks glow white in the man-made galaxy of their sheer _HAPPINESS_.

_Yi Fan didn’t come yet_ , That’s Tao’s last thought before the air bang-on warps hysterically and the power of Time inside Tao is decimated into uncontrollable, incomprehensible spirals. They’re obviously undoing undoing undoing undoing undoing the complicated channels that all this time, miraculously connected Tao and Kris and vice versa in this mystery world. Dragon wings splayed with the breathtaking stardust deigns to a very melancholic fade-out. unravel. so mercilessly.

It’s a rather lonely sight. The sad narrowing of Yi Fan’s right eye mirrors Tao’s sentiment even if neither could comprehend exactly how and why this unbelievable mystery world is breaking down. even if they had a million reasons and even lengthier explanations. It’s impossible to pinpoint the exact perpetrator – exhaustion? fear? one of them holding on too laxly? this world is too good to be true? the universe doesn’t want us being happy for way too long?

_Don’t regret any of this_ , Tao hears Yi Fan say, with surprisingly-unmistakable clarity amidst this multisensory cacophony. lonely chaos; beautiful things, beautiful emotions, beautiful words being swallowed to a black hole.

_You are in me_ , both of their eyes chant to each other. fading fingers entwine and prolong the sentiment.

_We are more reality than dreams._

  



End file.
